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The week of me.
Apr. 10th, 2011 01:43 amIn honour of the government not shutting down over the GOP's most recent attack on women, I bought a Diva Cup. ( Talk about girlybits )
So far, so good. I put it through its paces on the first day.
You see, I bought a bike. It's a 2007 Trek Lime, men's version, and it is weird as hell. It's got a 3 speed internal hub automatic shifter. You pedal. The bike makes arbitrary decisions on what help it thinks you need and shifts for you. It's actually quite intuitive, but it takes some getting used to. Back when I last rode a bike - and we're talking early 1990s here - it was a standard 10 speed and I think I changed gear all of twice in the entire time I had it. Which was why my original goal was a cruiser until realization that I am chubby, older, and haven't been on a bike in 20 years and hey, maybe some help pedaling uphill would be a good idea. The Lime is helpful. Oh, so very helpful. I'm just not used to shifting this much during a ride. It was also being very strange and almost backward on the ride today - I'd pedal faster to gain speed to go up a hill and the bike would upshift to a harder gear. I realized after the ride that the bike is meant to be a cruiser and maintain a level speed, and must be gauging shifting with pedal rotation. More rotations = it thinks you're going downhill and shifts you.
We hit two used bike stores before I found this, and by then I was happy to find something close to what I wanted. It sounded simple: Affordable 3-speed, internal hub so it has coaster brakes because nerve damage in hands != trust for handlebrakes, cruiser or mountain tires. I could find all that.. just not on the same bike.
The first store we went into.. Ok, let me express this first: bike people are nuts. I knew this before I began the quest for a bike. Bike people are fucking obsessive crazies over all aspects of their bikes and it loops their brains. It's like talking to a Martian. Usually, a condescending d-bag of a Martian that I'd kick off this planet as an insult to their species. There is a difference between bike riders and bike people. That being: bike people are nuts.
So, now that you understand my baseline for bike people, let me state: Dude at Store #1 was utterly mental. The used bikes were in the basement. The basement was at the bottom of narrow, poorly-lit stairs with no handrail. Dude hops in front of us to guide us to where the 'for sale' bikes were stored, which was appreciated because there was a shitton of 'bikes the store is being paid to work on' bikes in front of that area. Then he took us through the Wall of Stuff. Hubs, tires, gear thingies, other random bike parts, more bike parts, yet more bike parts, shut up about the fucking bike parts you are speaking Martian and I just want to BUY A BIKE, and more bike parts.
We find the used bikes. He points out some of the neat bikes he's worked on - and they were neat, no lie, Dude does faboo work with spokes and customization. But Dude is also, as I stated, utterly mental. He's talking a mile a minute and hopping from topic to topic, so in between showing us bikes and telling me I will never find the bike I want at the price I want because they sell like hotcakes when they get them in, he would mention how he was in a war in Thailand and when he saw The Enemy bringing in a huge gun on the back of an elephant, he waited until they were asleep and sawed the legs off the elephant and knocked the gun into the river and watched for a week while they retrieved the gun from the river.
Yes. Because telling the animal-loving girl in front of you who has actually been to Thailand and to elephant sanctuaries how you killed one? Gonna get you a sale right thar. But then he segued into another bike rapture and from there to telling us how he gave an expensive bike to his friend the dope dealer and hoped he wouldn't get his 80 year old mother's door kicked in a third time. His esteem went up in mine eyes at that, lemme tellya.
Another customer walked in behind us and was politely informed by dude that he was in the 'bikes to fix' and not 'bikes to buy' area. Customer asked where the line was. Dude said "Just come past the ladder." What ladder? "That ladder right there." There was no ladder. None. Nowhere. Unless it was under a giant pile of rusty bike carcases. We suspected he was having some sort of war flashback. Maybe it was a ladder on the elephant, leading up to the giant gun.
That Guy and I fled. Quickly. So as not to get our legs sawed off.
Bike Store #2 was more my style of store. Used bikes out for view, friendly, helpful sales clerk who pointed out that they didn't have anything like what I wanted but offered options on how to turn one of the other bikes into what I wanted for a fairly reasonable fee. When she went downstairs to see (and I digress enough to note, THEIR basement stairs were well-lit, and they did not make me go down them) whether they had a wheel that would work, she found the Trek Lime and brought it up. I took it for a spin. I did not fall on my head, which is more impressive than it sounds considering I had not been on a bike in over 20 years. The bike was a little more than I wanted to pay but under the amount I thought I'd wind up paying. I had them put a rear fender on it and bought it.
Meanwhile, That Guy found a Giant Black Iguana so that if the radiation from Japan gets as far as Minnesota, he can upgrade to Godzilla.
Went for lunch, brought the bikes back to his place, and then took them for a break-in spin.
9 miles later.. I had no idea we'd biked that far. I had also forgotten about my new silicon friend. No discomfort, no other problems. The only discomfort was to an entirely different part of my anatomy and I didn't notice until after I got off the bike. I'm pretty sure there's a bike seat-shaped bruise on my ass.
According to the calorie counter, I burned 299 calories on that ride. That writes off 1.5 slices of pizza out of the 3 I ate for lunch. It also means I'd burned off 1/3 of my total daily caloric intake. I'm pretending the asscheek pain is the death agony of those calories. I am honouring their memory by having a cookie.
The ride was as fun as I remember bike rides being, only with more "AAAGH! It's shifting again!" moments. Now that I think I understand its mentality, I'm going to try it again tomorrow. If my bruises let me.
So far, so good. I put it through its paces on the first day.
You see, I bought a bike. It's a 2007 Trek Lime, men's version, and it is weird as hell. It's got a 3 speed internal hub automatic shifter. You pedal. The bike makes arbitrary decisions on what help it thinks you need and shifts for you. It's actually quite intuitive, but it takes some getting used to. Back when I last rode a bike - and we're talking early 1990s here - it was a standard 10 speed and I think I changed gear all of twice in the entire time I had it. Which was why my original goal was a cruiser until realization that I am chubby, older, and haven't been on a bike in 20 years and hey, maybe some help pedaling uphill would be a good idea. The Lime is helpful. Oh, so very helpful. I'm just not used to shifting this much during a ride. It was also being very strange and almost backward on the ride today - I'd pedal faster to gain speed to go up a hill and the bike would upshift to a harder gear. I realized after the ride that the bike is meant to be a cruiser and maintain a level speed, and must be gauging shifting with pedal rotation. More rotations = it thinks you're going downhill and shifts you.
We hit two used bike stores before I found this, and by then I was happy to find something close to what I wanted. It sounded simple: Affordable 3-speed, internal hub so it has coaster brakes because nerve damage in hands != trust for handlebrakes, cruiser or mountain tires. I could find all that.. just not on the same bike.
The first store we went into.. Ok, let me express this first: bike people are nuts. I knew this before I began the quest for a bike. Bike people are fucking obsessive crazies over all aspects of their bikes and it loops their brains. It's like talking to a Martian. Usually, a condescending d-bag of a Martian that I'd kick off this planet as an insult to their species. There is a difference between bike riders and bike people. That being: bike people are nuts.
So, now that you understand my baseline for bike people, let me state: Dude at Store #1 was utterly mental. The used bikes were in the basement. The basement was at the bottom of narrow, poorly-lit stairs with no handrail. Dude hops in front of us to guide us to where the 'for sale' bikes were stored, which was appreciated because there was a shitton of 'bikes the store is being paid to work on' bikes in front of that area. Then he took us through the Wall of Stuff. Hubs, tires, gear thingies, other random bike parts, more bike parts, yet more bike parts, shut up about the fucking bike parts you are speaking Martian and I just want to BUY A BIKE, and more bike parts.
We find the used bikes. He points out some of the neat bikes he's worked on - and they were neat, no lie, Dude does faboo work with spokes and customization. But Dude is also, as I stated, utterly mental. He's talking a mile a minute and hopping from topic to topic, so in between showing us bikes and telling me I will never find the bike I want at the price I want because they sell like hotcakes when they get them in, he would mention how he was in a war in Thailand and when he saw The Enemy bringing in a huge gun on the back of an elephant, he waited until they were asleep and sawed the legs off the elephant and knocked the gun into the river and watched for a week while they retrieved the gun from the river.
Yes. Because telling the animal-loving girl in front of you who has actually been to Thailand and to elephant sanctuaries how you killed one? Gonna get you a sale right thar. But then he segued into another bike rapture and from there to telling us how he gave an expensive bike to his friend the dope dealer and hoped he wouldn't get his 80 year old mother's door kicked in a third time. His esteem went up in mine eyes at that, lemme tellya.
Another customer walked in behind us and was politely informed by dude that he was in the 'bikes to fix' and not 'bikes to buy' area. Customer asked where the line was. Dude said "Just come past the ladder." What ladder? "That ladder right there." There was no ladder. None. Nowhere. Unless it was under a giant pile of rusty bike carcases. We suspected he was having some sort of war flashback. Maybe it was a ladder on the elephant, leading up to the giant gun.
That Guy and I fled. Quickly. So as not to get our legs sawed off.
Bike Store #2 was more my style of store. Used bikes out for view, friendly, helpful sales clerk who pointed out that they didn't have anything like what I wanted but offered options on how to turn one of the other bikes into what I wanted for a fairly reasonable fee. When she went downstairs to see (and I digress enough to note, THEIR basement stairs were well-lit, and they did not make me go down them) whether they had a wheel that would work, she found the Trek Lime and brought it up. I took it for a spin. I did not fall on my head, which is more impressive than it sounds considering I had not been on a bike in over 20 years. The bike was a little more than I wanted to pay but under the amount I thought I'd wind up paying. I had them put a rear fender on it and bought it.
Meanwhile, That Guy found a Giant Black Iguana so that if the radiation from Japan gets as far as Minnesota, he can upgrade to Godzilla.
Went for lunch, brought the bikes back to his place, and then took them for a break-in spin.
9 miles later.. I had no idea we'd biked that far. I had also forgotten about my new silicon friend. No discomfort, no other problems. The only discomfort was to an entirely different part of my anatomy and I didn't notice until after I got off the bike. I'm pretty sure there's a bike seat-shaped bruise on my ass.
According to the calorie counter, I burned 299 calories on that ride. That writes off 1.5 slices of pizza out of the 3 I ate for lunch. It also means I'd burned off 1/3 of my total daily caloric intake. I'm pretending the asscheek pain is the death agony of those calories. I am honouring their memory by having a cookie.
The ride was as fun as I remember bike rides being, only with more "AAAGH! It's shifting again!" moments. Now that I think I understand its mentality, I'm going to try it again tomorrow. If my bruises let me.
